


three dollars a pound

by monstarsteeth (flowerstems)



Category: Free!
Genre: Crack, M/M, no emotional pain, this is really pointless, timeskip to university and stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 13:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4524150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerstems/pseuds/monstarsteeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it's so weird to see a fully grown man so intent on filling his pants with potatoes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	three dollars a pound

Rin is bagging items and giving change as fast as he can, he swears, but it's so hard to focus on checking cans and tightening the covers of juice bottles and milk jugs when there's such a sight in the produce aisle.

See, there's this guy.

There's this guy with dark dark hair and blue blue eyes who kind of looks like a model, but he's stuffing potatoes (of all things) into his _pants_ —his pockets, the legs of his trousers that are stuffed into his boots, the waistband—it's so. Weird.

It's so weird to see a fully grown man so intent on filling his pants with potatoes.

Why does he even want to do that? He can fill a handbasket with them, or a plastic bag, or a trolley. Why does he even want so many potatoes in the first place?

When the customers dwindle down to a steady stream of one person every half over, Rin rests his elbows on the counter and spends the free time watching this specimen of a man shove potatoes into his pants, twenty-seven and counting.

"Why are you staring at me? It's rude," blue-eyes scrunches his nose and looks right at Rin, a potato in one hand and the other hand hooked into his waistband, and for some unfathomable reason Rin feels offended. This guy comes in on his shift and starts shoving potatoes into his pants, yet Rin is the one wrong for staring.

Well then.

"Sorry. I was just wondering why someone would be shoving potatoes into their pants. You have about thirty in there? There are easier ways to hold them." He gestures to the stacks of baskets beside the counter and waves a plastic bag as though it were a white flag, incredulous bits of laughter bubbling up, he meant no harm.

"I don't trust plastic bags. they could burst and I'd lose all my potatoes." He drops a potato, and then three more (that's thirty-one now), into his pants then adds, "The baskets can bruise them."

Right.

"Uh-huh. Okay, I get it." Rin drops the plastic bag, lets it flutter awkwardly onto the counter, and folds his arms on top of it, perching himself on the counter and pointedly looking at blue-eyes.

Five potatoes later and his pants are looking too bulky, how will he walk like that? But Rin doesn't say anything, doesn't offer any more advice, and blue-eyes looks up with this offended expression like he's the one being wronged here.

"Would you please stop staring at me?"

"You have… thirty-six dollars worth of potatoes in your pants right now. I find it very hard not to stare at you."

A beat and, "I don't have to explain myself to you."

"Do you have an explanation?"

That makes him go silent, mouth twisted and shoulders stiff like he's been caught. "I'm a potato warrior."

"Really," Rin's eyebrows shoot up and he tries not to laugh, flashing a lopsided, pointy-toothed grin instead.

"I really like potato salad," and that's cool and all, except it sounds like a massive lie and Rin's laughing because of the look on blue-eyes' face.

"Is that why you've got thirty-six potatoes in your pants?"

Blue-eyes huffs and shuffles in place, potatoes jostling in his pants and Rin doesn't mean to laugh louder, but it just happens, really. "It's a dare, okay."

Turns out it's one of those dares that happens when overworked students get free time and have nothing better to do with themselves than torment each other. They reasoned that they could use all those potatoes to make a massive potato pie, but they couldn't decide on whether they would eat it or not.

Regardless, blue is kind of, sort of broke. Can't afford six potatoes (about six dollars) let alone thirty-six (definitely more than six dollars), not when he has to buy this and that and this and that. Rin could point out the little details except he wasn't really listening; this guy is really distracting. Because of the potatoes in his pants. That's the only reason.

Rin doesn't even know his name.

In the end, blue-eyes decides to take a picture as proof of 'having completed the dare,' giving Rin his phone and striking a goofy pose with one of the blandest expressions ever as Rin takes the picture.

Rin has to do a double take, looking between the photo and the man now hurriedly emptying his pants of the potatoes (that's not a sentence Rin ever thought he'd have to think,) and he can't help laughing because it is so weird.

Rin looks at the pile of potatoes (that were in blue-eyes' pants) and he wonders if he should leave them there.

Eh, they'll sell.

He hands over the phone when blue stops wriggling around in his clothes and looks a little less disturbed. "Hey, what did you say your name was again?"

"Haruka," blue— _Haruka_ , what a nice name—replies without a second thought, looking at the picture and furrowing his brow in distaste. Rin thinks it's such a mild reaction. Then his blue blue eyes look up, fixated on Rin's face in—surprise? "Wait, I never told you my name."

"Yeah you did. You just did it." He grins and holds his hand out, "I'm Rin by the way."

Haruka shakes his hand and nods like an afterthought.

"Whenever you need someone to hook you up with potatoes, I'm always on the afternoon shift. Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays."

That got a reaction. Haruka scoffs and turns his head to the side, glaring at the potatoes. "I'm more of a fish person."

“What kind of fish?”

“Mackerel.”

Rin laughs and lets go of Haruka’s hand. What a time for the freezer to need repairing. “We don’t really have any fish right now, but,” Rin pauses, goes over to the counter, grabs something then offers it to Haruka, “I can get you lip balm?”

Haruka looks at him for a moment, considers it then smiles despite himself, taking the lip balm from Rin and paying for it. “Are you trying to say my lips don’t look soft?”

Rin sputters; he hasn’t been looking at Haruka’s lips, why would he think that? Why does he feel like a deer caught in the headlights? “That’s not, I mean. I wasn’t—” Rin fumbles with his hands and rushes over to the cash register, eventually holding out a bill (1 eos Visibly Soft Lip Balm Sphere Vanilla Mint, $3.49, but he won’t buy a potato) that Haruka takes after suppressing a snicker at Rin’s embarrassment.

Haruka leans on the side of the counter, watches a few customers come and go, rolling the lip balm in his hands. Then he puts some on, waits for Rin to finish bagging cans of soda and socks and toothbrushes (what’s up with some of these guys?) and smacks his lips, loudly, to get Rin’s attention. “Do they look soft now?”

Rin almost answers honestly, they were soft looking before now they just look soft and shiny, but he doesn’t know if he should because Haruka’s face doesn’t betray any emotion, teasing or otherwise. So he narrows his eyes instead, “They look the same.”

“Then there’s no hope for me?”

“Doesn’t look like it, no.”

Haruka just watches him for a while, not even a thoughtful hum to fill the silence, and there it is again. That small smile that looks like one of the happiest he’s seen in days (the customers aren’t always in a good mood, and all Sousuke does is snicker at Rin and grumble about research) and Rin can’t help himself from laughing quietly.

“So, when does your shift end?”

Rin’s head snaps up, fingers in the register, stuck between sorting change, and Haruka’s blue blue eyes have this little sparkle in them like he’s honestly interested. Oh god.

“In twenty minutes.”

“Good, I’ll just wait here then.”

“Sure,” and by that Rin means holy shit, yes.

**Author's Note:**

> the prompt was, and i quote, "im a cashier and i saw you stuffing your pants full of potatoes and i would stop you but you already have 27 and i want to see how many you can fit," and i don't know how supermarkets actually work, especially when it comes to things like this.  
> yes.


End file.
